Spider Jerusalem Wack

Since my beautiful girlfriend left for Zoland, I’ve been an image of lethargy personified by such anti-politically correct heroes as Spider Jerusalem. Means I’m lazy, I feel like everything I do is a waste of the things I could’ve done, I’m unfree in the liberty that perpetual self induced anonymity brought on my life. I’ve been listening to suppressive adult alternatives and drinking tropicana and nimbu pani with the illusion that they’re going to give me enough spunk to crank the juice one last time every evening before bed. A dreamless sleep and endless void, away from systematic carnage and one shots.



Speaking of Spider, I’ve been meaning to write a little about Transmetropolitan since I got hooked awhile back when I was scouring the web for Warren Ellis material. When I first saw the naked Spider with his tattoos flipping the birdy, the first thing that came to me were those old 2000ad publications of pseudo futuristic apocalyptic aftermath cyberpunk anti heroes and some of the Tank Girl issues. But I was surprised at how different Transmet is from the typical Garth Ennis type science fiction, although I respect Ennis and think highly of his works, after reading too much of it they’ve became boring and bland. Maybe its got to do with the lack of real purpose of his protagonists. There is no real sense of achievement after finishing an issue these days. Spider on the other hand is a ball to read, everything he does is contradictory to his personality, but there’s always that underlying suspense that everything in the whole damn place is going to implode on itself anytime. And he doesn’t give a shit as long as there’s truth in what he gives. He was driven to achieve this one deal with himself and that was his purpose.


Spider is a hard-hitting gonzo journalist and a reluctant political hero, in the wake of him covering a pro genetic modification movement which culminated in him stopping a state stimulated riot. The shape the city was in will be more then satisfactorily explained my this ad of cola on the preview issue.


The theme is a post cyberpunk dystopian comic noir society where morality is defined by your stance on genetic engineering, technological innovation and the resultant social disintegration that human advancement is supposed to bring about.

I have always been a fan of gonzo journalism, I like the cynical presentation and in-your-face sarcasm and mostly, the sense that the piece is written by an opinionated jerk who’s going to stand by his story no matter what. There are times when you just want opinions because you’re either too lazy to form your own from the average news or you don’t trust your instinct or you feel less informed. People like Spider Jerusalem make comprehending the complexities of the world a little bit easier by being honest to themselves and to us. I especially love the ending, without spoiling it for eanyone you can rest assured Spider doesn’t disappoint even when it seemed like he’s going to fade out he will light things up until he burns away.

Censorship, Death and Che Guevara

One thing that struck me while reading 21 Techniques of Silent Killing by Master Hei Long was the descriptions of the techniques were as cold as the title. Considering the sensitive nature of its subject (Killing, Death) the Master’s words were so literal and industrial that you wouldn’t be blamed if at some point you thought you were reading a recipe from a cookbook. If you’re interested in these kinds of things and have the tendency to imagine yourself in the shoes of the person you’re reading about, the book pulls you in, rolls you around a bit and just throws you out disoriented, into the faggot that you have become in your mind. It’s not that this is so different from all the murder inc type instructional books out there in what it contains and traditionally, most of these books give the impression that everything in them are theoretical and that actually doing them hands on are plain crazy and if some crazy guy actually does them for kicks they’d be sorry it happened, but in 21 TSK forget about the friendly metaphors and parental warnings, the assumption is if you’re such a morally binding citizen why the fuck did you read this book, now fish out your trusty nunchaku and sharpen that shiv cos you’re no longer looking in.



I was thinking about it and I realized that, bearing in mind the serious business that killing is, books like this have a reason for being banned as oppose to how determined and stupid we all are to demand censorship be lifted on all things people like Master Hei Long throws at us. The military precision of the writing is well deserving of the seriousness of the subject. It diverts the generally gullible minds to straggle away to greener or sorrier pastures. Anyway, let’s digress a little here, let’s lift the damn censorship and hawk the Anarchist Cookbook in the next book fair for instance; it becomes a best seller because people buy them as survival guide. Then popular publishing houses started rolling out books about killing with funny anecdotes and college friendly manga type figures come next winter. Then just when you thought it’s the best thing since discovery channel some crazy nerd went John Rambo on his high school friends because nobody likes him and he stinks. Fact is when people started explaining about the gravity of the subject at the prologue of instructional books, they only spur interest, it’s like smoking is cool when you’re in high school and stupid high school kids think you have street creds or whatever but not so much when you’re addicted to it and you can’t shit unless you turn your toilet into an indian smoke signal.



Let’s be fair to our senses and think about what we’re fucking with before we shout ‘Ban Censorship’ to everything. We are slaves of generalization, we tend to worship everything new without thinking about what we really want. A few years back we saw Che Guevara as some sort of cool public enemy type revolutionist, sure he’s a great guy with great ideas, utopian but great anyway but many of the people sporting Che’s Ts don’t know anything about what he stands for or what the trend was all about. And people who think they’re above the rest delved too much into the little details and realized that he was all about torture and didn’t give a cow’s backlight about them. We either hide behind our ignorance to find the ultimate coolness or we dig up the reason the rest of the world is not and fail to see the big picture. Some of us are so blinded by the trend that we’d mistake a nipple suction for a bong pipe while some of us read too much into stuff to be a little more obscure that we’d masturbate with it. The upshot is that we trivialize the ideals behind great ideas and pass them off as seasonal whim for peer conscious pricks to boost their ego with. Somewhere along the line we just played down what could have been more to us then we never knew when it hit the air in a big way.

The Odd Couple

I was listening to this new age act call themselves Gnarls Barkley last night. The album is The Odd Couple if you’re interested, supposed to be their sophomore album so. Gorillaz had me interested in new age music awhile back, I thought they sounded dub because I was hearing a hint of De Facto and the Mad Professor in some of their shit. Anyways, Odd Couple impressed me, considering how mainstream Gnarls Barkley is, but in a fractional kind of way, because couple of tracks I can’t really stand like ‘charity case’ and ‘going on’, they sounded like soul and hip hop mashed together to form some kind of dub/soul hybrid and not in a good way like Sublime did with punk and reggae but in a bad way like Rancid in Life Won’t Wait.


I was drawn to the contrast in lyrics and music, considering the sound was dub in nature the songs were lyrically complex owing to how it was offered vocally. I think though, most of this had to do with the extent of intensity Cee-lo’s vocals bring to the songs. You can’t help but be captivated by his voice, if this guy was my pastor I would’ve been born again a hundred times over. Although probably digitally manufactured, the acoustic drum sounds also help giving dept to tracks like ‘Whatever’ and “She Knows” where the lyrics are kind of visceral.
Anyways, some of my favorite tracks are ‘Would be Killer’ ‘whatever’ and ‘Blind Mary’.
Actually this is, on the surface a happy clappy but after awhile, effectively depressing album which anyone who’s depressed about life and global warming etc shouldn’t pick up, but like me, if you’re particularly upbeat about your relationship and don’t mind listening to choir boys disparaging the irony of them singing about failed relationships and homicides, you’ll like it. what i'm saying is listen this for the instrumentals, weird but ultimately great sound. (click on the picture above to listen to 'going on' on youtube)

Mid Range Cards Blows

I blew last month’s allowance on this:



Because I was getting tired of this:




The 8500GT was giving me choppy frames while playing MP in UT3 and anything associated with it’s new engine, which are most of the games I’m playing now. Mostly I wanted to be able to play Crysis without feeling like I’m watching a slideshow with a 56k dial up connection. Considering the 8600gt is the spiritual successor of the mid end 7600gt of SM 3 era, I have to say I was disappointed at the performance I get. If it’s not for the ddr3 memory I don’t think the 8600gt would have any very significant head over its low end 8500gt cousin as far’s performance is concerned.

I’m not going to make a point by point specs comparison but let me just say that the reason I’m posting this is that I’m really sad that manufacturers are neglecting the mid range cards in favor of stripped down versions of high end cards, like the 8800GT w/ less VRAM which looks AND performs more like the mid range cards of yore. If this trend continues beggars wannabe-gamers like yours truly are fucked.

On Music

I’ve been listening to modern soul/blues a lot since I fall in love. I decided I was going to digress a little and check out the world music scene. Most of the artists I found are really crappy, they go for either the homoerotic Mika type high pitch ballads or the accidental gay themed ablums of James blunt. They remind me of Japanese geishas and Vai mating music.

Anyway, I am listening Paolo Nutini right now and I think this Scottish kid have some real potential. A little pubertal lyrically but he carries off his songs with an assurance you normally don’t see in a 19 year old, not the material confidence ala Britney spears and her ilk but a mental one. There’s a hint of conviction and really honest performance in him that he makes the oddly juvenile songs feel like good poems that you want to show off to your friends. Makes you think about how much of music is effected by the aesthetic aspect of it.

Nutini’s greatest strength I think is his voice, smooth, slow and lazily scratchy, perfect for a soul love song. This is not to say his music is all that bad either, I enjoyed the simple riff of “Jenny Don’t Be Hasty” and I would add “last request” to a mix cd for Mp without a second thought. He’s not the best obviously but one of the more listenable artist out there.

Click on the picture above to watch Paolo singing "jenny don't be hasty" from his album "These Streets"